Video: Character formatting with the Fonts panel

Not every character formatting option appears on the Format bar. These and some additional options can be found in the Fonts panel, which you can access by clicking the Fonts button on the toolbar in the top right corner. Fonts panel is Mac based, it's shared by many applications installed on your Mac like Keynote and TextEdit for example. With the Fonts panel open we simply select the text we want to change and make our changes from here. So using the View Finder Newsletter lets move to page 2 and select the text that appears at the top of the page. Triple-click inside the text box to select all of its contents and now to view a preview of the current font family inside being used here, and if it doesn't appear already at the top of the Fonts panel, click your Action button and select Show Preview. This displays the current font, the size, and this will change as we make adjustments to our selected text.

In Pages '09 Essential Training, David Rivers teaches many creative, time-saving features that will help both experienced and first-time users of Apple's word processing and page layout tool. David explains how to get started by customizing the user interface; then shows how to create unique, eye-catching documents using the text tools, templates, and styles in Pages '09. Exercise files accompany the course.

Character formatting with the Fonts panel

Not every character formatting option appears on the Format bar. These and someadditional options can be found in the Fonts panel, which you can access byclicking the Fonts button on the toolbar in the top right corner.Fonts panel is Mac based, it's shared by many applications installed on yourMac like Keynote and TextEdit for example. With the Fonts panel open we simplyselect the text we want to change and make our changes from here.So using the View Finder Newsletter lets move to page 2 and select the textthat appears at the top of the page. Triple-click inside the text box to selectall of its contents and now to view a preview of the current font family insidebeing used here, and if it doesn't appear already at the top of the Fontspanel, click your Action button and select Show Preview. This displays thecurrent font, the size, and this will change as we make adjustments to our selected text.

Now let's work from left to right. In the Collections column we can narrow downthe list of font families on the right -hand side by choosing a collection. If we know we want to use a classic font for example, we could click the Classiccollection to view a short list of font families that would be consideredclassic in nature. If we are looking for fun fonts, we could click the Funcollection to view a list of fun font families. To view all of your fonts,click All Fonts at the top which displays that alphabetical listing of everyfont installed on your Mac, similar to what you see on the Format bar. Now wecan scroll through the list to locate the font we are looking for.

Another option to locate a specific font is to use the search field at thebottom. This can save you a lot of time if you know the name of the font youare looking for. Click in the Search field and let's type Gill. This displays ashort list of font families beginning with the word Gill. Select Gill Sans atthe top to not only select that font family, but to apply the change to yourselected text which is also previewed at the top of your Fonts panel.Now we can select from typeface options that apply to this font family, let'sadd some emphasis by selecting Bold, and we can adjust the size from here aswell. We can select a preset such as 24 or use the slider dragging upwards toincrease the font size, down to decrease. Or we can enter a specific value.

Click and drag over current value in the Size field and type your own. Let's try 25 and press Return to lock that in.Now if this is going to be a font selection you use on a regular basis, you canmake it a favorite which will make it easy to select the next time. Click theAction button and choose Add to Favorites. Now in the collections column whenyou click Favorites, you will see any favorites you've added.Now we can also add some special effects from the Fonts panel here. Let's moveback to page 1 in our document and let's select the text Shot of the Month.

Triple-click to select all of the contents for that text box, and let's makesome adjustments. Here you will see buttons and dropdowns for underlining. Ifwe wanted to add some emphasis, we could choose from single or double or colored underlines.Let's try single. If it doesn't look quite right, we can always go back andchoose None. Strikethrough is another option, great for editing content, if youwant to show edits that you've made to current text.Let's add some color to this text now. The Text Color button when clickeddisplays the Colors palette and here we have a number of different options forselecting colors. Let's go to the spectrum and choose a dark blue green color.

We'll leave the Colors palette open and we'll move to the next option here onthe Fonts panel which is the Document Color or the color in behind our selectedtext. Clicking that button keeps the Colors palette open; let's choose a nicedark color such as black. Now to see our changes we should deselect our text.Click anywhere in the document to deselect the text to see the end result. Not a bad effect.We can also add some emphasis down below where we see the exposure, forexample. Let's click to get inside that text box, click again to get yourinsertion point next to the values and we'll drag across the value forexposure. To make that stand out, let's underline it. We'll use single and deselect our text to see the end result.

You can also add some additional special effects such as Shadows. Let's go topage 4 of our Newsletter and select the title that appears at the top.Triple-click the title to select all of the text inside the text box and nowwe'll turn the shadow on. Click text shadow to see the default settings.We also have some adjustments we can make. For example, we can adjust theOpacity, how much we can see through that shadow. Drag the slider to the right,darken the shadow, drag it to the left to make it more opaque.

Next, we can adjust the blurriness. To add realism to our shadow, you can dragto the right to blur it. And we can also choose to change the Offset. How faraway the shadow appears from our text, this brings it off the page as we dragto the right. Drag to the left to bring it closer to the page.Lastly, we can adjust the angle that the light appears to be hitting ourselected text. Let's rotate that to about 140 degrees by dragging the rotationhandle. When you are done with the Fonts panel, go ahead and close it as wellas the Colors palette. Let's deselect our text to see the end result.

So if you are looking for those character formatting extras, remember youalways have access to the Fonts panel in Pages '09.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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